Yoruba’s Account of Creation - Mythology Story (PDF) : Olodumare entrusted the creation of the earth to Oduduwa, the legendary Yoruba progenitor, and his elder brother Obatala. They were handed a chain, a handful of muck, a five-toed chicken, and some instructions.
On the way, they discovered palmwine, which Obatala drank himself into a stupor, and Oduduwa grabbed the goods and continued the trek, leaving his brother behind.
When he reached to the point of starting the work, he was a little nervous, but a chameleon encouraged him, and the Chameleon made him realize that there was no turning back on Olodumare’s quest. Oduduwa dropped the chain from heaven till it reached the primal seas on Earth. He poured the mud into the ocean and lowered the birds on it to assist disseminate it all around, thereby creating earth and expanding the moniker “land that expands” (Ile-Ife) as the fowl continued to scatter the muck.
When Oduduwa (the first person on Earth) arrived onto the planet, he planted a nut, and a great tree with sixteen branches appeared to symbolise the Yoruba clans and early life in Ile-Ife.
Oduduwa’s opportunistic invention resulted in an everlasting battle between the two brothers. However, once the world was successfully formed, Oduduwa became the Yoruba’s first supreme ruler, and Obatala was claimed to have produced the first people out of mud and clay.
Followers of the Yoruba religion accept and adhere to this creation tale; they think that Ile-Ife was not just the beginning of the Yoruba, but of the universe in general.
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